Borrow Pit. Huddersfield Art Gallery. 12th April – 3rd June 2023

The title Borrow Pit refers to a building term which means a hole, pit or excavation site that is dug to remove materials to be used in a construction project and acts as a response to the gallery’s location and a site about to undergo major urban redevelopment. Much as Borrow Pit might signify the reclamation or re-purposing of materials for new development, the work shown also explored and questioned themes relating to transformation or renewal. In our proposal, the Yorkshire Sculptor Group, who have a diverse range of sculpture-based practices, responded to ideas of reconstruction, regeneration, and repurposing in a variety of processes and materials to examine site as a place of change.

Purely repurposed ‘stuff’ was employed in Gardner’s works to test the generative power of materials to create new meaning. ‘Conduction’ (2023) is inspired by a tree near my workplace. The bright red berries dotted across bare branches indicated an internal vibrancy within a semi dormant organism, which conserves energy, yet still produces fruit in winter. The discarded remnants of an electrician’s wiring job were reclaimed to initiate the infrastructure for this work, the highly conductive properties of electric copper wire points to a charge of energy throughout a network, its ductile property valued in wiring mechanisms for its flexibility without the loss of strength in transmitting power. A connection is made between the electrical networks of human architectural spaces and the cellular change and distribution of energy in living species.

Senses of regeneration are continued in ‘Bud’ (2020-2023) inspired by a daily walk past a Horse Chestnut tree in the first lockdown of 2020. I observed the elaborate unfurling and shape shifting of a sticky bud becoming an emerging flower. The engagement allowed an invaluable lesson in intense slow looking. At a time of not knowing and trepidation, this seasonal emergence signalled a sense of hope.

‘Time Capsule’ (2011-2023) is a work revised and regenerated from 2011, its original intention was, in part, to memorialise the coal and textile industries. Coal donated from a small private coal mine in West Yorkshire, still functioning in 2011, is embedded within the capsule and shoddy blankets are layered on top. Reconfigured in 2023, repurposed worn clothing and plastics are now compressed within the layered block, reminiscent of sedimentary strata, indicating geological time. The materials remind us of the urgency needed in employing renewable energy, ecological building systems and a drastic re-evaluation of our attitudes to filling land with waste plastics and textiles.